Rowling wins copyright infringement case

[HarryT]

From the BBC News web site:

Author JK Rowling has won her legal battle in a New York court to get an unofficial Harry Potter encyclopaedia banned from publication.

Judge Robert Patterson said in a ruling Ms Rowling, 43, had proven Steven Vander Ark's Harry Potter Lexicon would cause her irreparable harm as a writer.

Ms Rowling sued Michigan based publishers RDR Books last year to stop publication of Mr Vander Ark's book. He wrote the book after running a popular Potter fansite.

Following the ruling, Ms Rowling said her legal action had aimed "to uphold the right of authors everywhere to protect their own original work".

She said: "The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own."

The statement added: "Many books have been published which offer original insights into the world of Harry Potter. The Lexicon just is not one of them."

The book had been originally due for publication on 28 November 2007, but legal proceedings prevented it from being released.

Ms Rowling had originally supported the Lexicon website, but she said there was a difference between fans publishing information for free on the internet, and selling it in the form of a book.

See:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7605142.stm

[axel77]

Okay in this news report we got Rowling several times to say something, I'd like to hear the other side as well. Or does the loser have no voice in our society?

Also note the judge:

He said: "While the Lexicon, in its current state, is not a fair use of the Harry Potter works, reference works that share the Lexicon's purpose of aiding readers of literature generally should be encouraged rather than stifled."

Unfair omission in this news report IMHO. The judge explicitly stated despite this ruling, he generally doesn't want to stifle books discussing/handling other books..

[HarryT]

I think personally that this is the correct result in this particular case, given that (I believe) something over 90% of the content of this book consisted of material "lifted" directly from the HP books. Limited quoting for academic purposes is "fair use", but this clearly isn't - it appears to have been a rather blatent attempt by someone to commercially profit from Ms. Rowling's work.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think personally that this is the correct result in this particular case, given that (I believe) something over 90% of the content of this book consisted of material "lifted" directly from the HP books. Limited quoting for academic purposes is "fair use", but this clearly isn't.

I didn't talk about if the ruling is right or wrong, honestly I don't know by far enough of this case. I just considered it pretty unfair having her have several concluding statements for public while him none. Regardless if right or wrong.

[acidzebra]

Google news has a ton of reports on it, some of which include the other guy's comments. He seems mostly ok with it and is moving on to other (HP-related) projects.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ne...ncl=1243944079

I haven't seen this work, so I wouldn't know. From what I could see from the judge's comments

"While the Lexicon, in its current state, is not a fair use of the Harry Potter works, reference works that share the Lexicon's purpose of aiding readers of literature generally should be encouraged rather than stifled," he said.

He said he ruled in Ms Rowling's favour because the "Lexicon appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide".

I would probably agree with the ruling.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by axel77

Okay in this news report we got Rowling several times to say something, I'd like to hear the other side as well. Or does the loser have no voice in our society?

There is an interesting comment over at TeleRead. It's by the author of Untangling Tolkien.
http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/09...icon/#comments

[HarryT]

He makes some interesting points, to be sure, but I'd have thought that it was a little "unwise" to publically acuse Federal court judges of being corrupt.

[bbusybookworm]

After reading his comments in full I have to disagree With the idea that he was accusing federal courts of corruption.

Bias, yes, corruption no.

the point he makes, i believe is that by virtue of its location, it sees a lot of publishing related cases. as such being human, the judge msy give a little more credence to a known party. also, judges normally don't like to upset previous rulings's so that can be a factor.

[JeffElkins]

This Ars Technica article is good:

As a fantasy literature enthusiast, I am disappointed by Rowling's unwillingness to achieve a reasonable compromise with Ark. She clearly saw value in his work and could have even collaborated with him instead of trying to create her own future lexicon from scratch. Inventive borrowing is the lifeblood of the fantasy genre and her attitude on the subject reflects some hypocrisy.

I side with Orson Scott Card. Like him, I've found Rowling to be a disappointment in her post-Harry career; first the Dumbledore debacle, now this.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think personally that this is the correct result in this particular case, given that (I believe) something over 90% of the content of this book consisted of material "lifted" directly from the HP books. Limited quoting for academic purposes is "fair use", but this clearly isn't - it appears to have been a rather blatent attempt by someone to commercially profit from Ms. Rowling's work.

I disagree. The court made a *bad* decision and this puts all "derivative" works based upon extracting information and putting it in a database form. Think of all the Prima gaming guides for games like Diablo and Warcraft.

Nope, it was a clear case of stupid greed (Rowling) and idiocy (the court) winning over justice.

Derek

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

I disagree. The court made a *bad* decision and this puts all "derivative" works based upon extracting information and putting it in a database form. Think of all the Prima gaming guides for games like Diablo and Warcraft.

Nope, it was a clear case of stupid greed (Rowling) and idiocy (the court) winning over justice.

Derek

The key point made by the court in this case is that there was virtually no "creative input" by the author; he'd just taken extracts of Rowling's work and presented it pretty-much word-for-word. One would imagine that in a game guide, the author would have put a lot of effort into figuring out how to win the game - that presumably count as "creative input".

I'm afraid I disagree with your conclusion.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

I disagree. The court made a *bad* decision and this puts all "derivative" works based upon extracting information and putting it in a database form. Think of all the Prima gaming guides for games like Diablo and Warcraft.

Nope, it was a clear case of stupid greed (Rowling) and idiocy (the court) winning over justice.

Derek

I think the judge explicitly noted that the ruling should not be misunderstood as to illegalize all derivative works.

And the other link to this Untangling Tolkien guy was very insightful IMHO. As he explictly noted the courts look if the original author or current copyright holders would have been able, or would do themselves what you did, or if you created something additional with own input.

The game guide think is a tricky question that opens up to our society... I'm pretty convinced that if someone writes a gameguide to a game, where the game seller never wanted to make his own game guide himself would be allowed to so... However if the seller wants to push his own guide, he could IMHO outlaw other people guides, as infringing copyright...

[JeffElkins]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

...idiocy (the court) winning over justice

Some Englishman said "The Law is an Ass."

Dickens?

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by HarryT

He makes some interesting points, to be sure, but I'd have thought that it was a little "unwise" to publically acuse Federal court judges of being corrupt.

I've read the guy's comments twice, and I don't see anywhere that he accuses the Federal court judges of being corrupt. Not at all.

What I got out of that is that the mindset of the Second Circuit is very different from that of the Ninth. That is something that is well known. Each Federal circuit has a different spin on certain issues, and it's not until there is a serious conflict between circuits on a particular issue that it will be decided by the Supreme Court.

The Ninth Circuit is West Coast and rather liberal and the Second is East Coast and for the most part more conservative. That doesn't mean that one is "corrupt."

So, where are you getting the accusations of corruption from? Is it just that we are reading it that differently??

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by JeffElkins

Some Englishman said "The Law is an Ass."

Dickens?

Yes, Dickens.